This invention relates to a packaging machine for individually wrapping rectangular flat articles, such as chocolate bars, and is particularly concerned with a folding, sealing and conveying apparatus incorporated in such a machine. The apparatus includes a stepwise operated turntable provided with a plurality of receiving pockets into which an article is, together with a wrapper piece, introduced in a charging station approximately in a radial direction relative to the turntable and from which the article may be radially pushed out in a discharge station. Each pocket has a first and a second wall which cooperate with the opposite large faces of the article and which are oriented approximately radially in the charging station and in the discharge station. Adjacent the turntable there is further provided at least one sealing station which includes a sealing device having a sealing shoe for forming a longitudinal fin seal on the wrapper. Between the charging station and the sealing station there is provided a folding mechanism to fold onto one another those flaps of the wrapper material which are to form the longitudinal fin seal.
An apparatus of the above-outlined type is known and is shown, for example, in the flyer DKN 0484 by SIG Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft, Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland. The known apparatus serves for the wrapping of chocolate bars with a wrapper and to form a longitudinal fin seal thereon. As the turntable rotates and the respective pockets with the chocolate bar and the wrapper material move towards a sealing station, the two relatively narrow wrapper flaps which are to constitute the longitudinal fin seal are folded to one another on the narrow side of a first wall of the respective pocket. In the sealing station the fin seal is formed by a heated sealing shoe. Upon further rotation of the turntable, the wrapped article, carried in the respective pocket, reaches a discharge station from which the article is pushed out of the pocket. During this occurrence, the two flaps constituting the fin seal are folded flat onto one of the large faces of the chocolate bar. Lateral seals or closures are formed in successive apparatuses.
The above-outlined apparatus operates in a satisfactory manner provided that the wrapper flaps are relatively narrow and in the successive folding operations they need not first extend away from the article. Such apparatus, however, is not adapted for relatively wide flaps because the flaps may wrinkle before they reach the sealing station and thus a hermetic seal is not achieved, and further, because in the discharge station the articles may be pushed out of the turntable pocket in an orientation which is unfavorable for the successive folding operation.